PARIS, Dec 7 — Usually worn during the summer months, clothes featuring subtle or bolder cut-outs are making a comeback this winter.
From red carpets to social networks to street styles, the cut-out trend is everywhere, putting sensuality and sexiness back on the fashion agenda, and (finally) relegating sweatsuits to the back of the closet.
You might have thought it was dead and buried, but sexy style is resurfacing in a form as subtle as a bull in a china shop, with slits, strips and holes of all shapes and sizes flashing flesh on torsos, chests, bellies, waists and hips.
The current cut-outs reveal just about every part of the body, as if this too was emerging from its own form of lockdown. Indeed, Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Because joggers are over, giving way to more sensual outfits as fashion once again becomes a game of light and shade. And celebrities are jumping on the trend wholeheartedly!
The cut-out for one and all...
The sensual suggestiveness of the cut-out was previously largely the preserve of womenswear, but that was without counting on the boom in more gender-fluid, if not totally genderless fashion.
While women are still numerous in exploring the possibilities of this trend, men are also giving it a go.
In a recent example, Lil Nas X showed that the suit could be fun and sexy.
At the Variety Music Hitmakers Brunch, held in Los Angeles, the rapper wore an immaculate white suit, not with the usual all-too-formal shirt, but with a tank top comprising countless cut-outs, almost like a kind of super-stylish bandage.
And he’s certainly not alone, since Harry Styles has also made cut-outs his own in the most stunning way.
In his November photo shoot for DAZED magazine, the star can be seen straddling a motorcycle in flared pants and a cut-out top, revealing his butterfly tattoo. More than a trend, the cut-out is quite the art form!
For several weeks, red carpet events have been showcasing different ways of working and wearing the cut-out trend.
Still at Variety’s Music Hitmakers celebration, singers Lana Del Rey and Kali Uchis turned up the heat under the Los Angeles sun with dresses and skirts playing on sensual cut-outs, mainly at the chest and hips.
And, contrary to what you might think, this trend is all about style and nothing to do with dressing for extreme heat, since Billie Eilish showed up at the ceremony in an XXL down jacket, casting, in passing, some doubt on the actual weather conditions in the City of Angels.
And it’s not just in the United States that the cut-out is proving popular. At November’s NRJ Music Awards in France, the supermodel Cindy Bruna caused a sensation on the red carpet wearing a black spaghetti strap dress with cut-outs at the hips and waist, and accessorized with thigh-high yellow satin-effect boots.
Similarly, at the Fashion Awards 2021 in London, Lily Allen, Adut Akech, Shanina Shaik and Iris Law all wore cut-out outfits, revealing, this time very subtly, sections of their silhouette with plays on transparency for a more sensual effect.
… or almost everyone
But while cut-outs may have transcended gender, no one can ignore the fact that the trend is not entirely inclusive — far from it, in fact.
You have to wonder whether the trend might not exclude some body shapes — those generally less slender and athletic than the ones regularly treading the red carpet.
As while the pert and slender seem all too keen to get involved in this fashion trend, what about the rest of the world — that is to say, the majority of men and women who populate our dear planet? With that in mind, you could be forgiven for thinking that the trend might eventually fade as quickly as it arrived. — ETX Studio
